Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Shining, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Fear, the Paranormal, and Reality
Precognition, Second Sight, and the Shining
Family
Isolation and Insanity
Alcoholism and Abuse
Time
Summary
Analysis
Jack Torrance sits across from Stuart Ullman and thinks he looks like an “officious little prick.” Jack admits, though, that he wouldn’t like anyone sitting on that side of the desk. Ullman is talking, but Jack isn’t listening. Ullman speaks again and asks if Jack’s wife, Wendy, really knows what she is getting into. Jack assures Ullman that both Wendy and their son, five-year-old Danny, are both incredible people and will be just fine.
Given the chapter’s title, readers can infer that Ullman is interviewing Jack for a job. The reader doesn’t know anything about Jack or his situation at this point, but his admission that he would automatically hate any interviewer on sight implies that he may have contention with authority figures or even a bit of an inferiority complex—perhaps because he’s butted heads with bosses or failed at jobs in the past. Meanwhile, Ullman’s doubt of Jack, Wendy, and Danny’s readiness for the responsibility Jack is about to undertake suggests that this job will be somehow involve Jack’s family, as well, and will be risky or taxing for all three of them. This implication subtly imbues the story with a creeping sense of danger and uncertainty right from the start.
Themes
Ullman asks Jack to step around the desk and look at the hotel floor plans. The top floor is the attic, Ullman says, and is all storage. Jack is to set rat traps in the attic, and under no circumstances, Ullman adds, should Jack allow Danny in the attic. Jack says he won’t, and wonders what kind of father Ullman thinks he is. The Overlook Hotel has 110 rooms total. There are 30 suites on the third floor—one of which is the Presidential Suite—and each has a beautiful view of the mountains. Both the first and second floors have 40 rooms, doubles and singles, and each floor has three linen closets and a storeroom.
King’s choice to reveal information about the Overlook through dialogue rather than direct exposition further builds up the reader’s sense of mystery and unease, since they are limited only to what Ullman decides to share with Jack. In particular, Ullman’s vague but firm insistence that Danny not be allowed in the attic implies that the hotel may be just as dangerous as it is beautiful. From this exchange, the reader can infer that Jack’s job will be looking after the hotel, and that Danny and Wendy will be joining him as he does so.
Themes
On the lobby level, Ullman continues, is the registration desk and the offices. The Overlook Dining Room and the Colorado Lounge are in the west wing, and the banquet hall and ballroom are in the east wing. Ullman informs Jack that a man named Watson will show him the basement and boiler, and then Ullman says that if not for Al Shockley, a powerful man who sits on the hotel’s Board of Directors, he would never have hired Jack. Jack clenches his fist and thinks again that Ullman is an “officious little prick.”
It's unclear at this point what, exactly, is the root of Ullman’s hesitance about hiring Jack—but the fact that someone on the Overlook’s Board of Directors had to convince him to do so implies that Jack committed some sort of transgression in his past that now makes him an undesirable employee. The very fact that Al was willing to vouch for Jack, though, means that at least one person in Jack’s life is willing to excuse (or even enable) his mistakes and vouch for him. Jack’s clenched-fist reaction and hostile thoughts about Ullman suggest that he has a certain amount of repressed anger and resentment over whatever situation Ullman is referencing. Once again, King’s method of revealing incomplete fragments of information about The Shining’s characters and setting through dialogue creates suspense and uneasiness for the reader.
Themes
Ullman tells Jack that he knows Jack doesn’t like him, and he doesn’t care. Ullman admits he is a difficult man, but that is what it takes to run a decent hotel. The Overlook Hotel was built between the years 1907 and 1909, and the closest town is Sidewinder, Colorado, some 40 miles east. Most roads up the mountain are closed from October or November until spring. In the hotel’s early days, it was bought and sold several times and stood vacant during World War II until Horace Derwent, a millionaire entrepreneur, bought and renovated it.
Jack’s estimation of Ullman as “officious” might not be so far off the mark, since Ullman clearly cares about nothing but maintaining the hotel, even if this means being an unlikable person. Here, the history of the Overlook mirrors that of the Stanley Hotel, the real-life Colorado hotel where King stayed in the 70s and which he drew upon for inspiration when writing The Shining. The Stanley was also built between 1907 and 1909. The Overlook clearly has an extensive past, housing untold thousands of guests over the years, yet the distance of the Overlook from Sidewinder and the impassible condition of the mountain roads in the winter establishes the hotel as an extremely isolated location during the off-season. This perhaps explains Ullman’s doubts about Jack and his family’s readiness to look after the place.
Themes
Get the entire The Shining LitChart as a printable PDF.
Ullman mentions that he noticed Jack admiring the roque court outside, but Jack isn’t sure what Ullman is talking about. Jack did see some kind of court outside, next to a bunch of animal topiaries, but he wasn’t sure what it was. Ullman informs him that roque is an English game, an earlier form of croquet. Croquet is merely “bastardized roque,” Ullman says, and the Overlook has the finest roque court in America. Ullman continues with his history lesson. Derwent lost a considerable amount of money in the hotel, and he sold it to some California investors, who in turn sold it to Al Shockley and his associates in 1970.
Jack wasn’t admiring the roque court, but Ullman admires it, and so assumes that others must as well. This attitude makes Ullman appear pretentious, much like his description of croquet as “bastardized roque,” as if the former is of an inferior class. The extravagant and somewhat outdated details of the roque court and animal topiaries give the Overlook itself a similar air of pretention and further emphasize the hotel’s connection to past eras. Ironically, given Ullman’s revelation here that Al Shockley (who recommended Jack for the job) actually owns the Overlook, the reader can infer that Jack is the one with friends in high places despite the arrogant Ullman’s low estimation of him.
Themes
The Overlook Hotel has consistently lost money since it opened, but this last season, under Ullman’s supervision, it turned a profit for the first time in 70 years. Part of the reason why the hotel loses money, Ullman says, is the harshness of winter. To remedy this, Ullman has started hiring a winter caretaker to fix problems as they arise and heat alternating floors of the hotel. However, Ullman tells Jack, the first winter he’d hired a winter caretaker, a “horrible tragedy” occurred.
Given the Overlook’s historical appeal, luxurious accommodations, and scenic location, the hotel should theoretically be a success—however, it appears that the Overlook’s isolated state in the winter months has a detrimental and costly effect on the building itself. Ullman’s cryptic comment about a “horrible tragedy” with the last winter caretaker again raises suspicion for the reader and hearkens back to Ullman’s insinuation that Jack and his family may not be prepared for the hotel’s remoteness and potential danger.
Themes
The first winter caretaker, Ullman tells Jack, was a man named Grady, and he was a total drunk. Jack interrupts Ullman and tells him that he no longer drinks. Ullman nods. Al Shockley has already told Ullman that Jack is sober, but Al also told him how Jack lost his last job as an English teacher at a Vermont prep school because he’d “lost [his] temper.” When Ullman hired Grady during the winter of 1970-71, he was hesitant. Grady had a wife and two daughters, and spending the winter at the Overlook means being cut off from the outside world for months.
Jack’s assertion of his sobriety (and Al’s knowledge of it) implies that Jack has struggled with alcohol abuse, which may or may not be related to his “temper” and losing his teaching job. This revelation sheds light on both Ullman’s condescension toward Jack and Jack’s automatic resentment of boss figures due to getting fired. Grady’s similarities to Jack are eerie, to say the least—especially given that the reader already knows Grady’s story ends tragically.
Themes
Jack can’t believe that he and his family will really be that cut off. After all, there are phones and radios, and Rocky Mountain National Park has a helicopter. Ullman says the hotel does have a two-way radio, but most of the phone lines are above ground, and winter storms frequently knock them out. It isn’t uncommon for phone lines to be down for weeks at a time during the winter. Ullman also adds that there is a snowmobile in the equipment shed. Jack again says the hotel doesn’t seem that cut off, but Ullman assures him it will feel plenty cut off if Wendy or Danny fall and fracture their skull. Getting help will be nearly impossible, and getting down the mountain in the frigid cold on a snowmobile won’t be easy. Plus, Ullman says, “solitude can be damaging in itself.”
King yet again leaves the reader with a sense of suspenseful unease as Jack and Ullman divert from the topic of Grady’s tragedy to discuss more logistical details of the Overlook. Jack is rather nonchalant about the level of isolation at the hotel, despite having never experienced such seclusion firsthand. Like Ullman implied earlier, Jack has no idea what he’s getting himself and his family into—even minor accidents and emergencies can turn catastrophic when one is cut off from the outside world. Additionally, Ullman’s comment about solitude suggests that the Overlook’s isolation could damage the family psychologically as well as physically.
Themes
Ullman tells Jack that Grady, the previous caretaker, had a case of “cabin fever.” He went insane, murdered his daughters with a hatchet, and then shot his wife and himself with a shotgun. Grady’s leg was broken when they found him; he had obviously been drunk and fallen down the stairs. Jack again assures Ullman that his family will be fine. Wendy and Jack like to read, and Jack is writing a play. Danny has plenty of toys. Jack wants to teach Danny to read and to snowshoe, and Wendy wants to learn, too. And, Jack says, he hasn’t had a drink in over a year, and he doesn’t plan on bringing any alcohol to the hotel.
King draws significant parallels between Jack and Grady: like Grady, Jack is a hot-tempered alcoholic who will serve as the Overlook’s winter caretaker with his wife and child in tow. In doing so, King plants a subtle seed of doubt in the reader’s mind as to whether Jack could possibly be driven to commit similarly horrific acts. Ullman downplays Grady’s actions by describing them as “cabin fever,” blaming his violence on isolation and alcohol without acknowledging what other factors may have contributed to the murders. Jack implies here, as he does throughout the book, that he and Wendy will be fine because they are intellectuals—Jack portrays himself, in particular, as a writer who is just down on his luck, refusing to acknowledge the similarities between Grady and himself.
Themes
Ullman confirms that the hotel bar has been cleaned out, and then he tells Jack that he is going to send him to talk to Watson in the basement. Before Ullman shows Jack out of his office, he says that he hopes there aren’t any “hard feelings.” Ullman knows he is tough, but he only wants what is best for the Overlook. Jack smiles, but is happy when Ullman doesn’t try to shake his hand. There are plenty of “hard feelings,” Jack thinks to himself.
Jack’s “hard feelings” further establish him as a resentful man who perhaps feels like a failure in light of his past mistakes. Given the gruesome nature of Grady’s story combined with the parallels between Grady and Jack, King again leaves readers uncertain of how, exactly, this resentment will manifest once the clearly angry and troubled Jack is sequestered in the Overlook with his family.
Themes
